Information Systems:Updating the Buying Cycle

Updating The Buying Cycle

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The buying cycle is a two-part process. The first part of the process involves updating the "Work with Period Purchases" table in ASW and the second part of the process involves manually updating and maintaining a separate spreadsheet that breaks the purchases down by buyer, by vendor and by day. The concept was that buyers should not be in charge of updating their own cycles so it was carved out and given to BI. To be honest I'm not sure why there needs to be this separation.

Background Information

Creating a purchase suggestion in ASW is a simple process that can be done manually for one to four vendors at a time or for a range of vendors. More on this process can be found in the article: Creating Purchase Suggestions (which is still to be written).

Every night the system automatically runs purchases suggestions as part of the overnight processing. ASW will create the purchase suggestions based on the date of the last created suggestion and using an interval between suggestions set in days. For example, if the last purchase suggestion date of vendor X was 033115 (March 31, 2015) and the number of days interval is set to 14, then the next suggestion will be triggered to run automatically on April 14, 2015.

The buying cycle is a uniPHARM construct and is simply a two week cycle that buyers use to split their vendor purchases so that they are evenly distributed over each business day of a two week period. This way buyers can control which days purchase suggestions for their vendors are automatically generated. Generally speaking 99% of all the vendors are on a 14 days cycle and the remaining few are on a 7 day cycle. This allows purchase suggestions to come up the same day of the week every two weeks (or every week if the vendor is on a 7 day cycle).

Administration of the Buying Cycle

When a buyer wants something in their buying cycle updated, added, or removed, they usually provide an e-mail explaining what they would like. Sometimes they drop by or call and express themselves verbally. While other times they will provide you with a physical copy of their buying cycle that has mysteriously shown up on your desk, or in your mailbox, with cryptic scribbles and writing on it depicting what they would like done. Regardless of their chosen approach, the buyers typically will provide the following information with their request:

• Vendor number
• Cycle number
• Day number
• Order minimum (quantity or amount)

The buyers may not provide all of these items and they may provide additional information, such as the vendor name, but they will usually provide enough information to set up the vendor. The buying cycle is split into two 1 week cycles which are called cycle 1 & cycle 2. Each day of the week is given a number 1 through 5 with Monday being 1 and Friday being 5. For example, if a buyer wants a new vendor added to the 2nd week of their buying cycle on a Thursday they will say "Cycle 2 / Day 4". Likewise, if a buyer wants a new vendor added to the 1st week of their buying cycle on a Wednesday they will say "Cycle 1 / Day 3".

If you're adding a new vendor the first thing to do is to take a look at the Buying Cycle spreadsheet and select the worksheet for that buyer and search for the customer number of the new vendor to make sure it's not already there. Sometimes the buyers don't realize that it's already on the buying cycle. If it is already on the buying cycle communicate this with them and ask them if it's okay where it is if it happens to be a different cycle and day than they had indicated. Most of the time they are fine with where it is and you can just leave it at that.

The Buying Cycle spreadsheet can be accessed in the Common directly of the BI folder in the appropriately labeled Buying Cycle directory. Or it can be accessed by using the link below:

Buying Cycles.xlsx 

All vendors are added to each day of the buying cycle in alphabetical order. So find the row in which the new vendor should be inserted above it and select and copy all lines starting at that line and going down to the last entry on that day. Don't copy the entire row as that will affect the cycle and day beside it. Rather just the cells from the cycle you want to add to. Once you have everything selected you need to Paste Values one line below it. This is very important that you paste values otherwise you will mess up the cell colouring that is already on each line of each day. If you mess this up you can always undo and try again.

Keep in mind that you need to make sure you have enough rows free below the vendors you are selecting so when you paste the values one row below it fits within that day on the spreadsheet. If the day is completely filled up with vendors you will either have to add another line to the bottom or ask the vendor if they are okay with moving the vendor to another cycle and day where there is a free spot. If you do have to add another line please keep in mind that there is no more room to simply insert another line. All lines are already added so if you add a line to one day you will have to take a line away from another day. Also be mindful of the formatting of the cells. You may have to adjust the grey / white colouring to get it correct after adding and subtracting lines from various days.

Once you have all the vendors moved down one row you can clear the row that you will use for the new vendor or simply type over what is there with the new vendor information. To get the appropriate information go to ASW names file enquiry or you can go to Business Partners in InfoNet and put in the full company name as it is in ASW. Make sure you put what is in the Name field and not the internal name as the internal name is often a shorter version of the name. Also fill in the customer number, the alias, a line code if you need to make one, and the order minimum if there is one provided. If one isn't provided usually you can just put a hyphen in this column. This shows that it wasn't forgotten but it was looked at and there was no value given.

Line Codes

Line codes are